James Gurney

This daily weblog by Dinotopia creator James Gurney is for illustrators, plein-air painters, sketchers, comic artists, animators, art students, and writers. You'll find practical studio tips, insights into the making of the Dinotopia books, and first-hand reports from art schools and museums.

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Monday, September 21, 2015

Although he was a devoted and prolific outdoor painter, Russian landscape painter Ivan Shishkin was also a big fan of photography, according to an article in the Russian archives.

He became closely involved with photos while working in Andrey Karelin's photography studio in 1870, coloring black and white photos for an album that was presented to emperor Alexander II.

Shishkin encouraged his students to work from photos, especially in the depths of winter, for example, when painting outdoors was impractical. Shishkin wrote in one of his letters:

"... Let me give you one major piece of advice, that underlies all of my painting secrets and techniques, and that advice is — photography. It is a mediator between the artist and nature and one of the most strict mentors you'll ever have. And if you understand the intelligent way of using it, you'll learn much faster and improve your weak points. You'll learn how to paint clouds, water, trees — everything. You'll better understand atmospheric effects and linear perspective and so on..."

Shishkin enlarged details with a magnifying glass, and he also used a projector. When he came to teach at the Academy of Fine Arts in 1897, he specifically mentioned the need for a "magic lantern" type projection device to aid in student learning, not only for enlarging photos, but for presenting drawings at a larger scale.

Although photographs were used widely by artists during his time, Shishkin was conscious of not mindlessly copying. He told his students that the way an artist uses a photo will reveal the artist with talent, because "a mediocre artist will slavishly copy all the unnecessary detail from photos, but a man with a flair will take only what he needs."

Shishkin's enthusiasm for modern tools like photography is not surprising during an era of technological innovation, and in an age of positivism, which placed a value on verifiable facts. His friend, portrait painter Ivan Kramskoi also used photography, and he probably used one to guide his portrait of Shishkin below:

Portrait of Shishkin by Ivan Kramskoi

But Shishkin never regarded photography as a substitute for painting outdoors from life. Kramskoi marveled at his productivity: "He paints two or three studies a day and completely finishes each of them."

Shishkin wrote: "In the case of art - be it art, architecture, such practice is of the greatest importance. It alone allows the artist to appreciate the substance of the raw material which nature presents. Therefore, the study of nature is necessary for any artist, but especially for the landscape."

Shishkin knew as much about individual plant forms as did the professional botanists of his day. He probably would have agreed with the critic Adrian Prakhov, who said, "I love the original character of every tree, every bush, and every blade of grass, and as a loving son who values ​​each wrinkle on the face of his mother."

Shishkin said, "Work every day as if it is your daily duty. There's no need to wait for inspiration! Inspiration is the work itself!"
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13 comments:

I am also working in gouache now and loving it more each time. As a seasoned watercolorist, the gouache is vivid and and user friendly. Love the DVD on Gouache in the Wild, well done. It really helped.

I always "suspected" that Shishkin`s detail was not merely done by human observation (that is by no means a way to devalue his work). Your article is enligthening in the sense that it offers empirical evidence about his attitude towards photography.

From a certain point onwards human visual capacity is simply restricted so i can picture him glanzing at the photo about the light effects and foliage-details in the painting in your text.

The use of photography for reference is no different to me than Albrecht Durer using the Lucy. Always draw, that's what real artists do, but when you have a foreshortened figure feel free. Look at Remlrants central figure and the way the hand comes forward, also look at how Nelson Shanks used photo sparingly but effectively.

Photography was new then. We are so surrounded by photos at all times, we can't really appreciate what a revelation it offered to these artists. Suddenly you could capture the detail, the moment, the values - and study it all at your own pace. In some cases it is very evident that photos had changed the way artists worked, for instance, you can compare the paintings of running horses before and after photography - suddenly the contrived "grayhound" pose used from time immemorial disappears, and true galloping pose replaces it. But the influence is everywhere, clear or subtle.

Photography did do a great service to art, by letting the artists observe things in a different way. Of course, it also made a great disservice to it in other ways - permitting lazy hacks to copy, shrinking the demand for illustration, changing the public's perception of painting, etc.

I watched Tim's Vermeer last night for the third time. I found it makes a good case for using visual aids like photography and the camera obscura, ludidograph (Lucy). In short it's tracing, the artist's dreaded crutch. In a jam as a commercial illustrator, it is efficient to get the work down fast and good. This helps, I use photo images, take them into photo shop, reduce to B&W, filter the image with outline, and apply all that into a grid in Illustrator. I usually do it for hands and faces to get a neede expression or likeness. I also attend figure drawing sessions weekly and find I am braver about leaving something in the drawing that "doesn't look right," it often is.

Except the case for Vermeer using a camera obscura is extremely weak. The only reason I can see for it being so pervasive - besides marketing and sensationalism - is simple envy: taking Vermeer down a notch, so his genius can be explained away and not be a constant reminder of one's own mediocrity.

Thank you for posting this. I am developing my own artistic style, and I adore the work of Ivan Shishkin. Astonishing artist. These posts about how he worked and his attitude about using photography are very useful to me.